


21gr

by D8ONO, Lightheaded_Dullahan



Series: Another World [2]
Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms, Fate/stay night - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Demons, Gen, Spin Off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 18:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17391116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D8ONO/pseuds/D8ONO, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightheaded_Dullahan/pseuds/Lightheaded_Dullahan
Summary: It's just that even a prodigy becomes a normal person once they're out of their twenties.But there were things that one could never do if they were never a prodigy. Dr. John Watson was just never one.Even if he couldn’t see the color of soul or the shape, he know its weight.





	21gr

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lightheaded_Dullahan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightheaded_Dullahan/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Mystery From Another World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17389910) by [Lightheaded_Dullahan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightheaded_Dullahan/pseuds/Lightheaded_Dullahan). 



_subject:soul_  
_weight:21gr_  
_shape:unknown_  
_color:unknown_

_What is ‘myself’?_

_How much does my soul worth?_

The shape of the soul was said to be like a 4,23cm ball. And it weighed 21 grams. This was an experiment performed by other scientist that ended up losing his lisence. But Watson believed in his theory. But Dr. John Watson was no prodigy. He couldn’t see or hear what people named as ‘soul’. But his passion was just as much as the geniuses, probably, even more. 

If he was just a normal man, he wouldn’t be dissecting body of his dead neighbor right now. He digged her grave and stole her body. She worked at backery and John was her regular buyer. He was sad when she died from illness, but his curiosity was more than his interest to her as a woman. She was a corpse now.

This midnight, Watson cut open her brain, her chest, he pulled out her organs. If only he had her weight before she died, it could be easier. She was no different from any bodies he had stolen before. Where was the soul? Or at least the place that used to be the soul. Where was it?

“Oya, you’re still doing it, Dr. Watson?” A man with long white hair and lavender eyes sat at the window, crossing his legs and resting his elbow on his knee and chin on his palm. “You’re very dedicated. That’s the fifth corpse you stole this month.”

John Watson glanced back a second, and continued working on the corpse. Sewing her back into her original shape. “Merlin, I want to be able to see soul.”

“Oh,” Merlin smirked, narrow eyes looked to the doctor’s moving back. “Unfortunately, that’s impossible,” he said, but he continued. “Unless you sell half of your soul to me or just be a demon instead, you can’t see soul.”

A demon is born when a human was eaten alive until the last drop by another demon. The ball of soul that fall out from human is the materialized form of soul. The shell of the soul was formed once the body dies. When alive, soul was something more akin to liquid. And demons could only eat the soul from living human from their mouths. Most demons couldn’t do that unless they were very strong. The average demon used soul extractor to get a silver of soul from the living human, but they don’t taste as good as fresh soul.

But turning into a demon was filled with questions. Watson never saw demons before. How did they look? Why do they eat souls? Aside from what he learnt from Merlin, he paid for it, he know nothing else. Of course, Merlin would happily provide more information as long as he was paid. But Watson didn’t had that much money anymore.

Watson warped her corpse in a cloth. The body that had turned into mad doll full of sewings, he hid her in his wardrobe. If only Watson knew what kind of thing a demon was, he would jump on the offer. 

Merlin chuckled as he watched the doctor pushed the doors of his wardrobe close. He was careful not to make the other bodies fall out. “It’s okay. Even if you sell half of your soul, it’s only percentage of chances on becoming a demon.” 

Watson turned back and faced the mysterious seller. A contractor of devil. “I—“

He wanted to speak when he heard footsteps coming towards his room. Watson panickly thought of where to hide or run, but he wasn’t that fast enough. He wasn’t even yet finished thinking when the police barged into his room and subdued him down, pressing his head on the floor. Prove that no sleeping for days made someone dumber.

But the people came wasn’t only the police, some priests were joining them. They were exorcists. They searched the room and once they declared there were no demons involved, they left.

Of course, Merlin had vanished. No signs of him was left. He disappeared as if he was the air itself. He was gone instantly. That half-demon was an enigma. Where did he came from and where was he heading?

John Watson was arrested for grave robbing and illegal dissection. Or so he was supposed to be. A kick was landed on his stomach and he puked water. He was dragged out of his apartment.

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John Watson was tortured in the interogation room. The police wasn’t asking for an confession. There was nothing to confess. The bodies were found in his room. But they kept on kicking him like a practice bag. For fun.

He was put in jail room for days and wasn’t given food or water. Watson had to recieve so many curses from the family of the bodies he had dissected. The daughter of the bakery lady cried and cursed him to death. A little shaken Watson was, but he didn’t regret his practice. He would still do it even if it was somebody else’s corpses. Curiosity was a strong battery. 

But today, he was brought into interogation room, but he wasn’t getting ganged up by the police. That had happened a everyday since three days ago when he was put here, but not today. His interogator today was a man with dark blue eyes, wearing a very neat and formal outfit. “Good afternoon, Dr. Watson,”

Watson eyes the man with one eye. The other one was swollen that it hurt to be kept open. His cheek was blueish too. He had been kicked and punched many times by the police. But this man, he was different. “You’ve commited series of serious crimes. You stole and cut open 24 corpses in two years. That is punishable by death.”

Well, of course Watson know that. He was a young man of twenty, a doctorate, not exactly a student of law, but he had common sense. What he did was a serious crime, but he wasn’t afraid. He didn’t want to die not because he feared death, but he was yet to find out the answer to his questions. 

“Ah, forgive me, where’s my manners?” the man apologized as he sat down. “Nice to meet you, I am Sherlock Holmes.” He said and crossed his fingers at his face. 

Watson’s jaw dropped in surprise. But after a moment of silent, closed it mouth. Now way this was the real Holmes. That famous detective should be an old man by now.

But Holmes grinned playfully. “You don’t believe I am the real Holmes, aren’t you? I am sixty years old. That’s true.”

Watson gulped. Curiosity, disbelief, a little scared. “Are you a demon?”

Holmes rest his crossed hands on the table. The light on top of them made the detective looked more intimidating. “No. I am a supernatural detective consultant. Just a human like you,” He answered. But that was the last thing John would buy. No one should look that young after 60 year. Holmes were lying, but which part he lied was not so clear.

Holmes continued. “Say, Watson, why are you so interested with human soul? That thing is only worth something for demons, and totally worthless to other humans. And you’re a human.”

“I want to know, the truth,” Watson answered. “Can you see them, souls and demons?”

“Of course. I had been able to see them ever since my birth,” Holmes replied as he looked at the doctor in confusion. “You can’t?”

Watson laughed, one pointed to himself. To his own averageness. “I am just a man.”

Holmes was quite amused with this doctor. A doctor that was more interested with soul rather than the bodies. A man who had never seen soul was desperately interested in something he even had never seen. If this wasn’t an obsession, what was it? “Say, doctor Watson, will you help me with my job? If you accept, I can help lighten your sentence.”

Watson was an average man. He couldn’t differ if the man in front of him was a human or a demon. But in the face of death, a string from a demon seemed like a salvation to him. As long as he could get his answers... 

Soul weighed 21gram. Other than that, John Watson knew nothing. It was a thing that he probably couldn’t know by searching the bodies.

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“Watson. Demons can’t kill humans. Humans kill humans,” Holmes crouched next to a corpse of a woman whose body was ripped apart and limbs were hone, but he head was clean and was still beautiful. “Demons have ethics and codes, you know?”

Watson watched as the famous detective pressed a finger into the woman’s mouth with a handkerchief. He examined . “What will happend if a demon kills?” he asked.

“Mostly, they will die. Demons aren’t allowed to directly kill a human. It was the nature’s force. Demons can only suck a soul if the human consent it...”

“Mostly?”

“Ah well, there are cases where someone’s soul didn’t fall out despite of the body being dead,” stained handkerchief to Watson. He looked disgusted at the cloth and he had readied a plastic bag for this. He put it in the bag and keep it in his pocket. “Those aren’t counted as demons who has no soul on their own. But an anomaly. We call them ‘ghouls’. They don’t usually live long, a few days at most. But they could hurt living beings. They were supposed to be rare... because people whose souls don’t fell out tend to survive. Unless their soul was cracked, then they will become ghouls.”

They were at a apartment’s attic. The woman’s body was found by the landowner and she called the police, but having no answer to this, they called Sherlock Holmes. They left the room, the police officer resticked the police line as they get out. Holmes continued. “They seek others’ soul by tearing the body apart. To compensate their leaking souls. Because the body was dead, the soul was already in physical form. Though, humans can’t see it.”

Watson’s step was stopped for a moment as he looked back to the house. “Is that a ghoul’s doings?”

“Yes,” Holmes nodded and his assistant ran following him. “Her mouth was wet with droll. That isn’t hers.”

Watson shuddered when he imagined why her mouth could be full of saliva. The ghoul must be trying to suck her soul out. How disgusting. “That’s... creepy.”

“Is that so?” Holmes wasn’t bothered at the slightest. “Well, you’ll get used to it some day.”

As the walked the busy streets, they walked pass a man with glasses. They didn’t call out on each other. But when they walked a few steps away, Holmes looked behind him as he watch the back of his enemy for a second and continued his steps.

Moriarty also looked back right after Holmes faced away.

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Holmes and Watson were at the station right at the midnight. Watson was holding an oil lamp as they walked on the rail. It could be romantic if they were a couple of lovebirds. But they were here because Holmes said the ghoul was here. “There’s no way the ghoul will be here, Holmes. That corpse earlier was indoor.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Holmes hit his cane at the rail he stood on. “That corpse was carried there. If it was killed there, the blood should have puddled. But the floor was dry,” he explained. “With you here, the ghoul will certainly appear.”

“As for why—“ he was about to explain more, but the guest had come. “...well, it comes now.”

A woman in white dress, smeared with blood, crawled on the railings. Her long black hair covered her face as she slowly crawled towards them. They could hear the sound of her cracking bones as she moved towards them. She smelt so digusting that John had almost puked. A dead body with living soul. But that didn’t lower his curiosity. Watson grabbed on Holmes’ arm. “Can I have her corpse?”

Holmes’ lips formed a smile. This was why he picked this man. “Of course,” he said as he pulled out a bottle of holy water from his breast pocket and gave it to Watson. “Well, if you get caught, use that at her. Good luck and don’t die.”

“Wait— what?”

And the ghoul’s crawl suddenly speeden up, and Watson had to run in fear. Weirdly, she just crawled pass Holmes as if he was invisible to her. Her sight was set on Watson alone. Blood trails formed from where she came from, and while Watson was being chased around, Holmes followed it to see where she came from.

Watson sweated a lot, screaming in fear as the ghoul coming after him. He gripped in the holy water, thinking when he should use it. Not now, they were still running. But until when was he supposed to be running. Too scary, too scary. Her eyes were all black as revealed when he looked back for a split second. What was that!?

“Akh— •◾️__|—“ unregistered gibberish screams came out from her. 

Watson didn’t dare to look back anymore. That voice was too scary. Too scary!

He ran like an hour and he was getting tired, but he kept running because his dear life was in the line. Unluckily, he slipped on the rail and fell down. She had almost killed him. She was on top of him, ready to suck him as her droll dripped on Watson’s face. Watson splashed that little holy water on her and she started screaming even more creepily. But her movements were stopped and Watson managed to save his ass from being sucked by that thing. But soon after that, she started chasing him again. 

He felt the ground moved and he heard the sound of the train coming. Chance. He stayed a the track and let the ghoul chase after him as much as he could. He ran until the last moment when it almost hit him, and he jumped out from the railings. 

He was breatheless as he watched the body being crushed the train. Blood splattered around as she was being destroyed. He couldn’t use that body anymore. What a waste. But at least there was her head which he could still open to see the brain. 

“Oh, you’re well. Thank goodness,” Holmes somehow appeared once again. 

Watson eyed him in annoyance and suspiciousm. Why did she not even interested in him? _What are you, Holmes?_

Holmes offered him a hand and helped him up. “Congratulations on meeting your first ghoul.”

Human bodies were like a machine, and the soul was like the battery. A human need both to be alive. Souls were not that important. It was nothing worthful except to the owner. 

That night, Watson saw a small crystal ball, rolling out from her body. A dull green colored ball and the surface was cracked. It was the shape of soul. He picked it up and brought it home with him. He put it on top of a scale and it was 21grams. The theory was right. 

And not long after that, the color faded away, leaving a black orb. And it broke away. Nothing was left of the thing that was supposed to be a soul. Watson watched as it wither away into particles. He wished he could keep it longer, but leaking souls don’t stay long.

But, why did he suddenly could see the ball? Holmes didn’t say anything. 

_Wait... if a ghoul came from a dead body with a cracked soul, what about a soul being inserted into another body?_

_Is there a way to patch leaking souls?_

Instead of earning answers, what Watson got was even more questions.

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End file.
